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INTRODUCTION

This Unplugged issue of M@n@gement is dedicated to the topic of Corporate
Entrepreneurship and is titled: Corporate Entrepreneurship: where are we?
Where can we go from here? An international workshop was organized in
Lyon on June 20-21st, 2011 and brought together about fifty researchers. The
aim of this workshop was to discuss the results of recent works in Corporate
Entrepreneurship research. To this end, we asked four researchers to do a
state of the field and to share their vision of the rising promising research
questions. The philosophy of this workshop was very much in line with that
of the Unplugged series. We wanted it to be, to quote Josserand (Clegg
& Starbuck, 2009), “a wild card to share their own perspective on novel
ways in which to conceive of management today”. In the field of corporate
entrepreneurship research, we are currently witnessing lively scientific debate
around the Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) construct and the interactions
between strategy and entrepreneurship. During the workshop, we embraced
the distinction between advances in science (that we make by asking good
questions) and scientific discovery (that we make by questioning what we think
we know). This Unplugged includes three parts:

In part one, we present “The Evolution and Contributions of Corporate
Entrepreneurship Research”, a state of the field of knowledge in the field. We
retrace the field’s first steps and offer an agenda for research. At the intersection
of strategic management and entrepreneurship lies the study of corporate
entrepreneurship (CE), a phrase coined by Peterson and Burger (Peterson &
Berger, 1971). CE is important for the field of general management (and thus the
readers of M@n@gement) because it addresses entrepreneurship at the level
of the firm (Miller, 1983), depending upon, yet going beyond, the entrepreneurial
behaviors of the individuals that compose it. CE has been studied through
its consequences (Guth & Ginsberg, 1990), through the prism of individual
behaviors (Burgelman, 1983) and by investigating how companies organize for
these activities (Kanter, 1985). The impact of national culture, meanwhile, has
been studied relatively little (Hayton, George, & Zahra, 2002). Instead, the field
has convened around other concepts applied to a corporate, organizational
setting, such as opportunity recognition (O’Connor & Rice, 2001). Zahra et al
note that the field is taking distance from the strategy literature, where CE has
become overshadowed by the concept of entrepreneurial orientation, a strategic
orientation akin to Market Orientation (Gotteland, Haon, & Jolibert, 2009),
to embrace other questions. Our suggested research agenda first identifies
the many classifications of CE that have been proposed. We note that the
factors that lead to this variety have yet to be identified. Further research can
fruitfully examine, amongst other topics: knowledge creation and integration,
contextual factors such as national culture, markets (emerging or mature) and
social entrepreneurship as well as inter-organizational manifestations of CE.
The micro-foundations of these phenomena bring with them rather interesting
questions: which individual behaviors lead to these organizational behaviors?
How are they intertwined? How can HRM practices induce such behaviors?
The keys to answering these issues, which can hopefully be offered by context,
have yet to be discovered.

In part two of this Unplugged, we present an essay by Hayton, Hornsby and
Goodblood entitled “The Contribution of HRM to Corporate Entrepreneurship:
a review and agenda for future research”. This piece examines the microfoundations of CE. The authors begin with the idea that from the perspective
of HRM, there are two facets to the entrepreneurial process: the first is
geared towards knowledge identification, acquisition and generation; the
second aims at knowledge assimilation, evaluation and integration. They
identify the first with Burgelman’s (1983) “autonomous strategic behaviors”
and the latter with “induced strategic behaviors”, a concept analogous to that
of “ambidexterity” (Schmitt, Probst, & Tushman, 2010). Hayton et al draw
upon “the behavioral view”, resource and capabilities based perspectives
and social exchange theory to piece together the relationship of CE to HRM.
Borrowing from these theoretical lenses, they develop a process-model where
environmental antecedents (leadership support, culture and structure) lead to
and are supported by HR systems (knowledge management, compensation
and incentives, policies and design) to favor the creation of human and
social capital, which in turn can induce entrepreneurial behavior at the firm
level (innovation, proactiveness and risk-taking). This in turn can produce CE
outcomes (innovation, venturing or renewal) through the mediating effects of
absorptive capacity and ambidexterity.

Finally, the third part of this Unplugged has two points of focus: the first is the
relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance; the second
is the role of corporate entrepreneurship in family businesses.

For nearly two decades, entrepreneurial orientation has held the center of the
stage in CE research, in particular the stream of research that focuses on
the relationship between EO and performance. In this issue, Rainer Harms
presents his research note, “From Entrepreneurial Orientation to Performance:
inside the black box of corporate entrepreneurship”. In Lumpkin and Dess’s
1996 conceptualization (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996), the integration of activities (for
example by using structural integration devices, rules, planning and budgeting,
or integrating roles for project activity) was identified as a potential mediator
in the relationship between EO and the performance of a firm. The unique
contribution of Harm’s piece is, first, to identify the methodological barriers to
this type of research. Second, he suggests more complex mediators. He shifts
the focus from individual factors (for example, firm structure, commitment and
organizational learning) to more complex ones: the entrepreneurial process
(a chain of mediators) and “configurational embeddedness” (which brings us
back to the initial intention of Miller’s 1983 work).

Out of the numerous different possible contexts, we chose to focus on family
businesses. In their piece, “Corporate Entrepreneurship in Family Businesses:
past, present, and future research”, Salvatore Sciascia and Cristina Bettinelli
note that the dichotomy of early CE research (CE being favored in family firms
against CE being impeded in family firms) has been overcome. Indeed, recent
research includes more complex models, where positive and negative effects
are studied simultaneously. In their suggested research agenda, the authors
include questions that cover outcomes of CE (for example, strategic renewal,
internationalization and strategic entrepreneurship) which have not been
investigated in family business literature, as well as non-linear relationships
and configurational approaches. Sciascia and Bettinelli go on to ask more
provocative questions: how can entrepreneurial behaviors be transmitted from
one generation to the next? Could succession be a tool to develop CE in family
firms? If we have at heart to study how the family affects CE, we could equally
question how CE affects the family. This research note delivers a much needed
study of the literature and the topic as a whole, because CE is one of the keys
to firm survival and success, and family businesses are both a major form of
business worldwide and are characterized by unique features.